A Seasonal Thing
by solitarius-x
Summary: Gabrielle describes how Xena is like the changing seasons, and all the struggles that come with them.


**Summer**

I used to hate it when summer came around. The unrelenting force and heat that continues all day and never yields. The summer where in my town i would have to go to the markets and i would complain about the intense heat. A heat that would settle around your body and never let you leave. I used to hate summer, until I saw it reflected in her eyes. It was in her eyes every day when she was fighting for what was right. Fought for what she believed. Fought for me. It was times like this when i saw the side of her that never left. No matter how much she does it for the common good. There is an enjoyment in the fight, the battle, that excites her. But i have gotten used to this side of her. I used to think that if she ever did that than she would revert back to her own warlord days. I have learned that you can never have the good without the bad, especially when it comes to her. Which is exactly why I am attracted to her. Summer can be a dangerous time. The turmoil and hatred for the life she used to have rolled into something she used to fight the evil that grew in this world. It was her way of redemption, retribution for her sins. She was passionate, and one of the only things she cared about. Being good. She used this drive to fuel her anger, her passion and it came out in her fighting. It came out in a way that every move she made was like a dance, a heated dance or fire and power that burned anyone who dared to come near. She was the unstoppable force. No one could contend with her in this state, she would burn anyone who tried. I used to stay far away when she was like this, i hated this side of her. The constant fighting, and the obvious joy she gets from killing.

Her anger scared me at first. the way she would smile wickedly as she took up her sword, ready to fight some low life warlord. she had a passion for the violence. It was something that i usually shied against. She taught me that sometimes violence is necessary, that it wasn't all bad. The passion and thrill that she showed when fighting wasn't all for sport. It was part of her life, and she embraced it in the best way possible. There was always something majestic about summer, something that fascinated me, no matter how much i hated it. It was the smell in the air, something musky and an underlying hint of danger that permeated my senses. The fires that burned down villages, now burns in her eyes, and I'm in love. It is her fire that protects me when I am unable to do myself. Her fire that reminds me that she will always be there for me, no matter what. You see, i used to hate summer, but then i felt the fire radiant from her core as she was in her element. I knew the summer would never harm me ever again. Her rage might have been the summer, but it was for the good, for doing the right thing. Sometimes she feels guilty about this, i can see it in the dulling of the fire in those blue orbs that i call home. Yet that warmth is always there, buried in the recess of her mind until its needed. A fight is like pouring oil on a fire, it ignites to immeasurable proportions and is unstoppable once it gets started. A fire that destroys everything evil in its path and leaves the righteous untouched by its flame. Some people are scared of the fire that burns in her eyes, the internal flame that burns so brightly. I'm not afraid though, because i know that it is the flame of justice, a flame of peace. It is a flame that will burn bright than any other, one that people will remember for will talk about the forever summer, the summer that burned, and scorched the people in its paths.

**Winter**

You might think that summer and winter are complete opposites, but they are two sides of the same coin. They have more in common than anything else, they come hand in hand. When she turns into winter, it is usually after summer more often than not. She becomes stoic, like she was when i first met her. She closes everyone off. Never talks. Just keeps walking, until we reach another destination. In this way she is like the winter that blows in. Sudden, but then the cold can stay for days. A cold that chills all the way down to the bones. A chill where nothing can warm you up. That is what she is like sometimes. Usually after a hard mission that involved a greater loss than we both anticipated. A greater loss that should have never happened, a lose that cost the lives of innocents. It happened one day after a battle. You expect there to be casualties of war, but nothing quite like this. No, this was horrific. Hundreds of women, men and children lay slaughtered, clutching each other in a last attempt of comfort as they met their fate. She shut down after that, she feels it's her fault somehow. I can't even get through to her. She is impenetrable ice that will never break, crumble, or melt without the aid of sunshine. But in the middle of winter there is no sunshine to be found. The only thing to do is wait for the season to pass, until it is safe to come out without freezing along with the wind. The wind that whips across my face and leaves a stinging chill that reaches down to my heart.

It goes to my heart and settles there until a warmer season is able to thaw the dark, lost feeling. She wouldn't talk to me for days. instead opting to darkly brood and sharpen her sword. That was the only sound i ever got out of the winter, especially on days like this. Just the simple sound of stone against steel, like a howling wind in the darkness of the night that shrouded us. The darkness came at the disappearing of the sun, but even when it rose again the darkness was a constant fixture in her heart. A weight that dragged her down, tortured her to the point of insanity. Feeling that she wasn't good enough, that she wasn't doing enough to right her wrongs. I hated it when she shut down like this. after coming so far she would crawl back into her shell, behind her sturdy walls and stay there. I sometimes feel that the only way to get her out is break down those walls, and destroy that safe place. When i do she becomes xena again. The xena i fell in love with. The one with all the emotions that could rival a bard and the weight if lifted off her shoulders. Instead her and I carry it together, each step making it smaller until it is insignificant as the gods in our lives. The winter is an unstoppable season, a season that is so cold people die from the chill that clings to their bones, their lungs and ensnares every breath until they have nothing left. I must save her from this fate, this fate of being enclosed in the darkness and the cold fighting to win. I can never let that happen. So even is winter does come, and even if it stays for a day or two. I can make sure that there will always be brighter days around the corner.

**Autumn **

When we would meet new people, she was autumn. a mixture of summer and winter. the time where it can't seem to make up its mind. It is not fierce and wild like the summer, it's also not cold and unrelenting as the winter. A better way to describe autumn is that it is warm, but still there is a chill in the air.A little bit of both that make up for a unique combination. It is still hard for her to trust. She believes that people will judge her for her past, some of them do. I can tell that it tears her up inside, and thats when the cold picks up. Though whenever i remind her that im beside her, that im here for here. It mellows out again, and becomes that sort of inbetween. She has never learnt how to trust others as much as she trusts me. I was surprised when she let me come with her, all the way at the start of our story. That she felt that she could be with me was a monumental step for her. She never accepts the praise that people deal out for us after we save their town. I take it to hear as it makes me joyous to know that we are doing something right, something worthwhile. For her though she shrugs it off, thinking her doing good is a penance for all the evil she has done in her life. I don't believe that, but sometimes she is stubborn, unable to move pasts a certain point or idea.

Just like it is in winter in the way that i sticks around for days in the wind and rain that attacks the skin. The fact that she can't stop all the evil in the world, no matter how hard she tries. She carries the world around on her shoulders and hardly ever shares the burden with me. In her actions i see the warmth, the fire, the determination that she emanates. Around other people she is autumn, an inbetween with the sun and snow. Light and dark. Warm and inviting, closed and shut off. This is how she carries herself, it is a season that lasts for days, weeks, months. She feels she needs to hide her true self, no matter which one it is. Around other people, innocent people, she can never be either one. Cannot be angry and fierce. Yet she can't be stoic and alone. She craves the attention, you can see it in her eyes. The dulling at rejection, and the bright light at recognition. She is a work of art in this sense. A mixture of beautiful colours that combine on a canvas of skin to create an angel in mortal form. These feelings that she hides, they make her human, the mixture of shyness and openness that she craves to show people, wants to show people her true nature. But I'm the only one that sees the other side of her, and I am so thankful. She never accepts love r friendship from someone else, she believes she doesn't deserve it. But she does, i cannot express how much she deserves the love and warmth that people give to her. She is so important yet she can never see it in anyones eyes. She is used to the rejection, the hatred in peoples eyes. So everyday i make sure that she knows she is loved by at least one person in this world. That is how she is like the autumn. She might be closed off and distant from others, but to me she is the ray of sunshine on the otherwise dreary makes my world brighter, everyday, every second. She is there for me, and i know that I am loved, even if in these times she does not show it.

**Spring**

Loving her was spring. it was the side she didn't let anyone see, apart from me. the warm, loving and kind xena that i adore. There has been little to no one who has seen her like this. No one ever appreciates the spring. It is a time for new beginnings and peace. If anyone paid attention to spring, to the way it warmed the body in the most pleasant way. The way that in spring you can stay outside all day and its never to warm. It is always just right. How it should be How it should be, inside her embrace. Feeling her warmth, and care radiating from every pore. To completely surround me in the only thing that keeps me going. Her love. Forever and always. And when I'm with her it is always spring, not matter to time, season or place we are in. because being with the is everything. The thing is now i can accept all parts her in the most purest ways possible. That she is everything to me and i treat her as such. For each touch there is a light that ignites within my heart and i can never get enough of this feeling. Just as when you stop breathing you die, i think that if i ever stopped touching her, loving her, than i would die just the same. It was the little touches that we shared while surrounded by company or by ourselves that warmed my very core. we would be at the campfire, and its the look she gives me as she sharpens her stone. a look that centered me, and reminded me why i stayed. We were soulmates. Spring is the best season of all, it is the most perfect, the most precious.

Spring is a gift to be treasured and kept safe. Never letting it go, or losing it would mean slipping back into a storm of other, more harsher seasons. A season that would surely kill you if you stayed out too long. This is why our love is spring. for spring is gentle, warm, inviting, forever at peace. As we sleep, her arm encompasses me and i am safe. I know that she will protect me forever. She keeps me safe when I'm awake, and chases away nightmares a night. She is everything to me. My soulmate, and I am hers. She is my spring. My way of new beginnings and endless peace. I know she feels the same, I am her shining light at the end of a dark tunnel that was her life. With me though, she is free to love and to be loved in return. We saved each other. We were both stuck, trapped in an endless turmoil of seasons and changes. Where were both trapped in a swirling storm of summer and winter. Of Xena's rage and anguish that she carried on her back, and me, stuck in the cold. Not fully knowing what love was and never receiving the love i learnt i deserved. Together, I pulled Xena out of her summer, and she released me from my internal winter.

There is a sound off to my right, have I really been awake this long. The burning campfire illustrates the black ink of the sky, the sky that resembles my ink filled parchment. My lover, my spring calls to me, her voice littered with sleep. Something that sounds vaguely like I should come to bed. Who am I to argue with such a beauty. The story can wait for another time. As I crawl into the space between her arms, I am loved. Together we made spring for each other, a wonderful warm feeling that spreads throughout our body by a simple look, caress, kiss from the other. Together we are perfect, and that is how it will always be. A forever spring, no matter the time, place or season. When we are with each other, our lives are complete, and our hearts sing together with such love.


End file.
